100%: the Story of a Patriot eBook

This debate was not conducted in the realm of abstractions;
the two wings of the movement would attack one another
with bitterness. The “politicians”
would denounce the “impossibilists,” calling
them “anarchists;” and the other side,
thus goaded, would accuse their enemies of being in
the hire of the government. Peter would supply
McGivney with bits of scandal which the “under
cover” men would start going among the “left-wingers;”
and in the course of the long wrangles in the local
these accusations would come out. Herbert Ashton
would mention them with his biting sarcasm, or “Shorty”
Gunton would shout them in one of his tirades—­“hurling
them into his opponents teeth,” as he phrased
it.

“Shorty” Gunton was a tramp printer, a
wandering agitator who was all for direct action,
and didn’t care a hang who knew it. “Violence?”
he would say. “How many thousand years shall
we submit to the violence of capitalist governments,
and never have the right to reply?” And then
again he would say, “Violence? Yes, of course
we must repudiate violence—­until we get
enough of it!” Peter had listened to “Shorty’s”
railings at the “compromisers” and the
“political traders,” and had thought him
one of the most dangerous men in American City.
But later on, after the episode of Joe Angell had
opened Peter’s eyes, he decided that “Shorty”
must also be a secret agent like himself.

Peter was never told definitely, but he picked up
a fact here and there, and fitted them together, and
before long his suspicion had become certainty.
The “left wing” Socialists split off from
the party, and called a convention of their own, and
this convention in turn split up, one part forming
the Communist Party, and another part forming the
Communist Labor Party. While these two conventions
were in session, McGivney came to Peter, and said that
the Federal government had a man on the platform committee
of the Communist Party, and they wanted to write in
some phrases that would make membership in that party
in itself a crime, so that everybody who held a membership
card could be sent to prison without further evidence.
These phrases must be in the orthodox Communist lingo,
and this was where Peter’s specialized knowledge
was needed.

So Peter wrote the phrases, and a couple of days later
he read in the newspapers an account of the convention
proceedings. The platform committee had reported,
and “Shorty” Gunton had submitted a minority
report, and had made a fiery speech in the convention,
with the result that his minority report was carried
by a narrow margin. This minority report contained
all the phrases that Peter had written. A couple
of months later, when the government had its case
ready, and the wholesale raids upon the Communists
took place, “Shorty” Gunton was arrested,
but a few days later he made a dramatic escape by
sawing his way thru the roof of the jail!